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Healthcare and university leaders representing HSSC dedicated a new brain imaging center at Palmetto Health Richland in 2006 and showed off the center’s powerful new scanner, the most advanced of its kind in the world.

Named the McCausland Center for Brain Imaging, the center honors University of South Carolina (USC) alumnus and donor Peter J. McCausland and is the first one built since HSSC was created in 2004. It represents the first research investment made by HSSC to the SmartState Center in Brain Imaging, a $12 million statewide research initiative funded by public and private money to explore brain imaging, memory and attention, detection of deception, and stroke.

The $12 million price tag includes $5 million in state funds matched by $5 million in private funding. That amount comprises $1.75 million from McCausland, $250,000 from Edward B. Cantey Jr, a USC graduate and a former engineer with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in New York, and $1.5 million each from Palmetto Health and Greenville Hospital System. An additional $2 million was received from a federal grant.

The centerpiece is a high-field strength, 3 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner, one of only two in the state, that will be used by USC researchers and Palmetto Health clinicians for clinical research and patient care. The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) houses the state’s other 3T MRI scanner.